


there’s only so many words you can rhyme with heart

by APgeeksout



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Community: wrestlingkink, Dental Surgery, Developing Relationship, M/M, Medication, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sharing a Bed, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-28
Updated: 2016-02-28
Packaged: 2018-05-23 19:30:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6127708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"How did you not get these out when you were a kid?" Roman asked, taking the keys from Seth's fumbling grip and looking for the key that fit the deadbolt.  </p><p>"Maybe I wanted to be wise," Seth said, words slurred around the gauze packed into his jaw.  He gave a loose, high-pitched giggle and pitched forward to press his face into Roman's back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there’s only so many words you can rhyme with heart

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the Shield era, inspired by [this prompt](http://wrestlingkink.dreamwidth.org/279.html?thread=337943) at the delightful [wrestling kinkmeme](http://wrestlingkink.dreamwidth.org), and belatedly covering my "medication" square in the amnesty period for Round 6 of Hurt/Comfort Bingo on lj. <3

"How did you not get these out when you were a kid?" Roman asked, taking the keys from Seth's fumbling grip and looking for the key that fit the deadbolt. 

"Maybe I wanted to be wise," Seth said, words slurred around the gauze packed into his jaw. He gave a loose, high-pitched giggle and pitched forward to press his face into Roman's back. 

Dean chuckled and reeled him back, freeing Roman up to open the door and let them in to Seth's place. "And how'd that work out for you?"

Seth shrugged expansively. "I mean, I'm still hanging out with assholes like you two..."

"Hey!" Dean protested. "We're the assholes who're gonna spend our off days feeding you soup or whatever."

Roman turned back to trade a _you believe this sass?_ grin with him, even as Seth's face scrunched up in concern, eyes with only a narrow band of deep brown visible around wide pupils settling searchingly on him. 

"You know I don't mean that, right?" Seth asked plaintively. "I know that's kind of a thing with you. You're not an asshole..." He paused, recalculating. "Or maybe you are, but I am too, and really, I love you guys." His hand scrabbled over Dean's back, twisting urgently into the material of his t-shirt. "Really." 

It was beyond stupid that all that was enough to start tightening a knot in his chest, but it definitely wasn't the first (and probably wouldn't be the last) time Seth Rollins made him stupid. He made himself laugh and hauled Seth against his chest, where at least he wouldn't have to keep looking at his soppy expression.

"They gave you the really good drugs, huh?" he asked, and dropped a kiss onto the gold side of Seth's head. 

"Mmm-hmm," Seth hummed somberly and sagged into him. 

Roman pushed the door wide and turned back to them with a soft look before shepherding them inside, resting one hand on Dean's shoulder and the other on the top of Seth's bowed head. "We love you, too, little brother. Even when you're high as a damn kite."

"Even when you're an asshole," Dean agreed, and Seth squeezed him tight enough to take his breath.

 

The first couple of hours weren't pretty, with Seth swapping gory lumps of gauze out for clean according to a schedule Roman kept for him on his phone. Still, it wasn't like Dean'd picked now to get squeamish about blood, and they sat with him until the bleeding stopped and he slept again, face gone slack, drooling a little on the pillow Dean had fetched from his bed when Seth had insisted on making camp in the living room, stumbling thickly over a protest that ended up with a few extra syllables, but would probably have been "I'm not an invalid" if he were less fuzzy.

He snagged Seth's phone from the coffee table, and with a few experimental taps at the screen, figured out the camera well enough to snap a couple of glamour shots. When Roman came back in from his call home, he'd make him email them to both of them. 

He'd thought, briefly, about posting to Twitter - he was pretty sure he remembered how from the five minutes he'd really used his account - but, given his current shape, he wasn't totally sure Seth wouldn't cry. Wasn't sure he would know what to do with being the one to make him. 

 

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty. How you feeling?" Roman asked softly, looking over Dean's shoulder to where Seth had begun to stir on the couch. 

It was a couple hours past lunchtime and Dean had been kicking Roman's ass at gin rummy across the coffee table while their brother slept off painkillers and the last of his anesthesia. 

"Mmmph," Seth grumbled eloquently, blinking at them blearily in the afternoon light slanting warm through the gaps in his blinds. 

"Tea," Roman pronounced, and folded his hand onto the tabletop. "Tea and soup. Make you feel half-ass human again." 

"If you say so," Seth said, voice like gravel in his throat.

"I do say," Roman said and moved into the kitchen. 

Dean scraped the deck in and shuffled it together, riffling through the cards even as he turned halfway in the space between the table and the couch so that he could see Seth's face. "So, on a scale from Coal Miner's Glove to Kennel from Hell, how shitty do you feel right now?" 

Seth's brow furrowed in concentration. "I don't know... like... Shark Cage Match?"

Dean winced in sympathy. "That bad, huh?"

Seth hummed his agreement. "Kinda queasy," he elaborated.

"Eat anything with that first set of pills?" 

Seth shook his head and stretched, one arm coming to rest covering his eyes, tipping his head in a way that turned his hair into a halo of frizz against the pillow. He sighed tiredly, his throat working.

"That'll do it," Dean said softly. He lined the cards up on the edge of the table and let his hand edge beneath Seth's thin blanket and settle over his stomach in an idle stroke over his thin t-shirt. 

Seth didn't jump at his touch, the way Dean knew he might have if the tables were turned, just took the arm away from his face to look over at him, eyes bright, and dropped his own hand to cover Dean's. 

It felt like they stayed that way for a long time, until Seth hauled himself up to a sitting position and patted the spot next to him in an invitation. Dean took him up on it, sinking onto cushions still warm from the heat of Seth's body and chuckling when Seth tipped over to mold himself against his side. 

"You throw up on me and I'm gone," he warned.

Seth laughed at that, quiet and warm, his rib cage shaking gently. "Like that would be the grossest thing you've let someone do in your career."

He snorted and reached over to rub absently at Seth's belly again. "Yeah, okay. Point. You two've ruined me, though. Gave me standards and shit."

"Like not being puked on?"

"For starters. Feels like a good policy. Been working out for me so far."

Seth reached down and laced his warm fingers together with Dean's own. "I'm glad," he said, pressing his face into Dean's shoulder. "You deserve good things." 

"Holy shit, you get mushy when you're high." Not that he had much to say; Seth's being loopy was making him pretty fucking soft, too. Maybe the vomit would have been easier to deal with.

 

The rest of the day passed with the three of them piled lazy on the couch in front of a marathon of _Harry Potter and the Adults Who Never Listen_ movies, Seth snugged up in the middle and dropping in and out between mugs of noodle soup and doses of meds, surfacing occasionally to give very serious and thorough answers to their idle, teasing questions about magic.

Eventually, he and Roman convinced Seth to go lay down in his bed, so that he could stretch out, and they could order in some real food without feeling too guilty about eating in front of him.

It was there, sprawled out on his t-shirt sheets that Dean found him when he woke around midnight and decided that checking on him was more useful than staring blankly at the ceiling. His face was peaceful, hair spilling loose against his pillows, and - as if it hadn't already been clear - Dean knew all over again exactly how fucked he was by how badly he itched to touch him.

 

"Hey." Roman shook his shoulder gently, and Dean realized that he had fallen asleep in Seth's bed, his brother's face tucked against his shoulder and body curved against him, heavy and warm with sleep. 

"Headed out?" The light that snuck in around the edges of the curtains was the watery blue of approaching dawn. Roman had an early flight home to his girls. 

"Yeah. I left some Jello in the fridge. Jo thought it was important for Uncle Seth get some made the way she likes - with the pineapple juice - to feel better."

"Good kid."

Roman smiled. "Yeah, her old man's a sucker, though." He reached down and smoothed a hand over Seth's hair, so lightly that he didn't even stir against Dean's shoulder. "Should be ready to eat by the time Dopey here is."

He lifted the arm that wasn't under Seth, holding a fist out for Roman to bump. "Safe flight, brother."

"Y'all take care of each other." Roman hit him up and, with one more fond smile at the two of them tangled up on Seth's bed, withdrew. After a minute, he heard the front door open and close, leaving him alone with Seth breathing steady and slow, one arm looped easily around his middle.

He laid awake for a while after that. The last time he'd tried to take care of someone else, it hadn't worked out for either of them. Hell, as his partners kept reminding him, he had a pretty long history of doing a shit job of taking care of _himself_. 

Seth stirred, giving a quiet noise of discomfort and tucking tighter into him, and without letting himself think about it too hard, Dean turned onto his side and shifted to hold Seth against his chest in a hug. He wasn't a dumbshit kid any more; nobody was going to call him unfit for this. 

"Dean? Y'good?" Seth asked blearily, blinking slow. 

"Golden." He rubbed a slow circle between Seth's shoulders. "You hurting?"

"Only for you," he said, tilting his face to press a clumsy kiss to the underside of Dean's jaw.

Dean laughed, only partly down to the prickle of Seth's beard against his own scruff. "You know, it's too bad you won't remember any of this tomorrow. Not gonna be near as much fun to give you shit about it."

Seth nuzzled into him once more and went quiet for long enough that Dean figured he'd gone back under, until he spoke up, words muffled against Dean's collarbone and settling warm and heavy in the center of his chest: "Never gonna forget how I feel about you. Neither should you."


End file.
